Over the past 3 years, Ashoka fellows Yuyun Ismawati from Bali Fokus (Indonesia), Ignace Schops from Regionaal Landschap Kempen en Maasland (Belgium), and Orri Vigfusson from the North Atlantic Salmon Fund (Iceland) have won the Goldman Environmental Prize for innovative environmental work.
Incredibly prestigious, the Goldman Environmental Prize is considered the environmental Nobel Prize. It is the world’s largest prize honouring grassroots environmentalists. This trend of Ashoka Fellows winning the Goldman holds significance for both the Ashoka Foundation as well as the social entrepreneurship industry in general.
Ashoka is the largest and most famous society of social entrepreneurs in the world. Individuals who have developed potential solutions for some of the world’s most urgent social problems. Since its founding over 25 years ago, Ashoka has provided start up financing, professional support services, and connections to its members (termed “fellows”). Fellows work in six somewhat related thematic areas:
Their motto says it all:
We envision a world in which many more people can enjoy the freedom, self permission and support to make a difference – an Everyone A Changemaker™ world.
The support that Ashoka provides its fellows is pretty amazing. Fellows receive a stipend for three years to help them launch and spread their social innovation. With these funds and access to a large fellow network, the support of the Ashoka Foundation has begun to pay dividends, as the Goldman Prize-winning trend demonstrates.
Social entrepreneurship takes the same skills that have allowed Microsoft, Ebay, and Google to take the world by storm, and applies it to less profit-ready challenges. And, instead of venture capitalists supporting their business ideas, organizations like the Ashoka Foundation are there to provide social entrepreneurs with support. Measuring the success of that support is that much more difficult though when there aren’t profits, and outputs are habitat saved, social habits changed, and children educated. Winning prestigious prizes is yet one more measure of success in this field and therein lies the significance of the Goldman Prize trend.
If you haven’t already, I encourage you to explore the Ashoka Foundation and the Goldman Prize. Maybe they’ll inspire you to change our world.
Image: Courtesy of the Ashoka Foundation
